


Things Left Unsaid

by ClaudiaRain



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 03:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12312921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaudiaRain/pseuds/ClaudiaRain
Summary: Felicity falls ill, but it might be the best thing that's ever happened to her.





	Things Left Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> If this seems vaguely familiar to anyone, I posted this on FF.net in 2014, long before I had an account here. I've been debating moving some of my stories over and thought this would be a good candidate since I write mostly about the DC Verse nowadays.
> 
> Timeline wise, this is pretty vague. It can fit anywhere you want it to, there's not really any spoilers of any kind - the only pertinent things are that Oliver still has money and owns his mansion, and he and Felicity are not together, yet.

The ceiling of their headquarters is pretty boring, Felicity realizes, once she's been staring at it for a while. Why have they never put a flat screen TV up there? Or a mural? A nice mural would really liven up it up, maybe something in the Renaissance style or –

"Felicity!" Oliver calls, appearing from somewhere off to her right, though she can't see his actual entrance on account of how she's staring at the ceiling. "I need you to run some names for me, former prisoners of – what are you doing on the floor?"

That's a good question, she thinks.

His head appears in her view, blocking her gaze of the ceiling which has fascinated her for an unknown amount of time. "Felicity?"

"Oliver."

He stares at her for a few seconds, then shakes his head and walks away. "Intense work-out?" he asks.

Another good question, and she thinks the answer is no. She'd gotten this idea in her head that she should probably be more adept at fighting, and defending herself, so she had decided to start light with exercises she found online. She went to a lot of work for this plan, too, even buying designated work-out clothes, but she hadn't gotten very far into the routine before she felt overwhelming exhaustion, and after a round of crunches (by that she means two), she had never gotten up again. She tries to formulate some of that into a coherent reply. "I'm taking a break."

"Good, then you can come over here and help me."

She manages to turn her head slightly to the left. He's sitting in her usual chair, but instead of staring at the bank of computers in front of him, he's looking at her with a completely bewildered expression on his face. She could be wrong, but she gathers that his confusion is from the fact that she's still lying prone on the floor (and if anyone had told her that's where she'd end up today, she'd have devised a  _much_ more interesting scenario leading up to it).

"I don't know, Oliver." Her words come out much slower than she intends, and she doesn't know why. "That sounds like it will involve sitting up and…moving. A…lot of moving." For some reason, she can't do that right now, or maybe ever again, if she's being honest.

"Felicity?" There's a lot more worry and concern in the way he says her name than there was a minute ago.

"Oliver." She repeats his name again, too, because it seems that's what they're doing right now.

He's back at her side and kneeling next to her. "Did you hurt yourself? What's going on?" He reaches for her hand and pulls her to sit up.

"I'm really tired," she tells him, meeting his eyes, but it feels like she isn't really seeing him. Or he isn't really seeing her.

"Do you think you were drugged?"

Huh, she really has no idea. "I don't remember being drugged."

"Most people don't," he says. "That's kind of the point."

"Are you being flip with me?" Indignation gives her a little more energy and clarity. "I'm lying practically unconscious on the floor, here."

"You're sitting up. And you're talking to me."

"You're showing a serious lack of concern," she admonishes, pressing both hands to her head. It's starting to hurt a little bit.

He pulls one of her hands away from her forehead and replaces it with his own. "Felicity, you're really hot."

"Oliver!" She tries to playfully hit his arm, misses, and pitches sideways until he catches her. "Don't try and flatter me to get what you want."

He looks at the ceiling for some reason. "No, I mean you're physically hot."

"Stop, this is inappropriate!" she says, then winks at him. "Not that I mind."

"As in sick, Felicity. You're  _sick_." He sounds pretty stern.

"Well. That's disheartening," she frowns at him. "For a number of reasons."

"How do you feel? Do you feel sick?" His brow furrows, and she reaches up to try and brush that worry away. It only makes him look more worried.

"I feel…not myself." That's about the best she can describe it.

"Come on, get up." He stands and pulls her to her feet. It's too much, too quickly, despite how carefully he does it, and the entire room starts spinning around her, as if they're in one of those revolving restaurants that spins to show diners the 360 degree view of any given city.

She shuts her eyes, but it doesn't help, and the feeling of movement becomes so intense that she grips his shirt in desperation. "Please, make it stop."

She feels him put his hands on her shoulders. "Make what stop?"

"The room. It's going too fast."

"Felicity, open your eyes. We're not moving."

She does as he asks, because that's what she usually does, right? But opening her eyes makes it worse, so she snaps them shut again and leans into him to try and keep her balance. "I can feel it."

"I'm not lying to you, Felicity. It's not the room. It's you. You're not feeling well; it's a trick of your mind."

His words break through whatever haze she's been in, and she meets his eyes. "That's not good."

"No." His mouth tightens into a thin line, as if he's angry with her. "It's not."

"I'm sorry," she says, trying to apologize for whatever she's done to upset him. It could be any number of things, really.

"Why are you sorry?"

"For upsetting you. I think."

He carefully takes her face in his hands and speaks slowly, as if to make sure she understands him. "You're not upsetting me."

"Could have fooled me. You still look mad."

He forces himself to smile. "Better?"

She tilts her head. "Now you just look creepy, and a little insane."

She gets the sense that he  _really_ wants to roll his eyes at her, but is refraining from it. "So an improvement?"

She nods, but it makes things worse, and she immediately freezes. "I should go home, probably. I don't think I can get there."

"I'm taking you home," he says.

"But you haven't even bought me dinner," she teases, starting to laugh. He doesn't join in, and she wonders if what she said was actually funny at all. Probably not. Still. "You need to lighten up, Oliver!"

"I'm plenty light," he protests, and she registers that they're walking, but she doesn't know where they're going. Then they're outside, and he's putting her in a car. It's his car. That makes sense.

"You're not light," she argues. "You're heavy. I mean, not in size, of course. Though maybe, you have a lot of muscle definition." He doesn't respond to that, and she realizes it's because she's running her hands up and down his arm, as if to prove to him that he's in good shape. She quickly drops her hands. "I mean. What was I saying?"

"I honestly have no idea," he says. She shuts her eyes for a few minutes. He's driving now, or at least she feels the car moving and that's the only explanation for it. Unless aliens have somehow abducted them and the car is flying through the air and the world will never hear from them again after this. But what are the odds of that? Though if you did the calculations –

"Are we on the ground?" She might sound slightly hysterical, because he jumps slightly.

He gestures out the windshield, and she sees they are indeed driving on a road. It's a really dizzying view. "Felicity, where else would we be?"

"Space, Oliver. We could be in  _space_."

"But Felicity, we  _are_ in space." There's definite amusement in his voice. "Right now our planet is orbiting –"

"Don't do this to me," she begs, pressing a hand to her eyes. He reaches over to squeeze her other hand lightly for a moment.

"Hey, before you fell asleep, I believe you were telling me how serious I am?"

She was asleep? She doesn't remember that. But her words must have bothered him if he's bringing them up again. She'd already forgotten about it.

"Not serious, Oliver, heavy. Like everything is of the gravest importance and you never joke around or have fun or just  _live_ your life – wait, you  _are_ right. You're too serious."

"I'm serious when I need to be."

"Right, which is every moment of your life. Ever."

"I know how to have fun."

"Even when you're having fun, you're never really  _having fun_. You're always on guard, you're always waiting for something terrible to happen."

"Because something terrible is always happening!"

He has a fair point. They do suffer through about one terrible thing per week. Her thoughts drift. "Why do so many bad things happen on Wednesdays? It's really the most dangerous day. You'd think it'd be Fridays or Saturdays when people go out and party, right?"

He ignores her change of subject. "It's interesting, that's all. The way you see me. If you had known me before, I wonder what you'd say?" His tone is light, but she gets it. He's tried to become the opposite of the man he was before the island, and it must sound like she's saying she'd prefer him the way he was.

Which could not be further from the truth. She doesn't know how to tell him that, so she tries to lean over and hug him instead. Something holds her back. She struggles with it for a minute before Oliver snaps his eyes over to her. "Are you trying to take off your seat belt?"

"You need a hug, Oliver. I'm not going to let some car restraint system keep me from that task." But she can't get out of it, for the life of her. She yanks at it ineffectively. "Are these childproof or something?"

He reaches out a hand to stop her erratic flailing. "We're almost home, alright?"

She levels him with a suspicious look before reluctantly acquiescing. They're at Oliver's house a few minutes later. That's not right.

"This isn't my building."

"I'm glad your powers of deduction haven't left you," he says, releasing her seat belt. "Wait for –" She ignores him, throwing open the passenger door and getting out. That's when the world starts spinning again, and she sinks down against the car to end up sitting in his driveway.

"Do you want some help?" he asks from above her.

"No, just leave me here," she glowers at him. "I was actually hoping to sleep on your driveway tonight, so that dream came true."

"That sounds almost like the Felicity I know," he says, grabbing her hands and pulling her up. There's a fondness in his voice that she finds indescribably reassuring.

She takes stock of how it feels to stand. Not great, but not as terrible as back at headquarters - if "not as terrible" can be considered an improvement over anything. "And who's the Felicity that you don't know?"

"That…I do not know," he says, shutting the passenger door behind her and helping her toward his house. She sort of leans on him, and maybe she lets him think she's a bit more unsteady than she is.

Until she trips walking through the entryway and realizes she's actually as unsteady as she thought she was only pretending to be.

And just thinking that sentence causes her head to ache even more.

"What did you trip on? There's not even a step there," he remarks, but he hasn't let go of her yet, and he's saved her from probably a half dozen falls tonight, so she's feeling charitable toward him. "I'm going to see if anyone's home," he says, helping her sit in a chair in the foyer and disappearing.

Surprisingly, it takes a  _lot_ of work to not fall out of a chair, which is something she has never given much thought to in her life, before today.

It's only been about twenty minutes since he found her at their headquarters, but in that time, she has felt progressively worse. She can't pinpoint exactly what's wrong, except for a general feeling of illness and unease. She also feels intermittently hot and cold. At the moment, she's too hot. Almost like she wants to strip down completely and wander Oliver's house looking for an ice bath. She has enough sense left to know that is probably not the best option. She'd probably run into Walter or something.

Oliver returns, and kneels in front of her. Why does he look so amused? "What's this about an ice bath? With Walter? Something you want to tell me?"

"I did not say that out loud." At his look, she groans. "Ugh, kill me."

He shakes his head, placing his hands on her knees. "No can do. You're too valuable to Queen Consolidated."

She scoffs. "All that money I'm making you as your secretary, huh?"

"Valuable doesn't necessarily mean money-wise," he tells her.

"You know I hate my job."

"Then quit."

"Okay, I quit!"

"You can't quit."

"What am I now, your indentured servant?"

"If it keeps you from leaving, then yes. Consider yourself indentured."

Her silence is deafening.

"Not funny?" He arches a brow.

"I'm going to strangle you. Slowly. In your sleep."

"How about this," he begins, and the way he says it, unexpectedly gentle, catches her attention. "You can't leave because I literally could not be who I am without you."

She simply stares at him, her heart clenching in her chest. They're eye to eye, but she doesn't know if he can see how much his words mean to her.

"And I like you way too much to throw you out a window," he continues. "Think of the bad press."

She has no way to respond to that. "Oliver –"

"Felicity." He kisses her forehead.

She wants to tell him so many things, but her body is really protesting at the moment. She takes a deep breath to try and settle herself, but it doesn't work. "I don't know if you can tell, but it's taking all I have left in me to not slide right out of this chair and collapse on your beautiful Italian floor tiles."

"You need to lie down."

"It's very helpful that you've started stating the obvious."

She stands up on her own to prove she can do it, and takes about ten seconds to gain her balance. "Okay?" he asks, as if he wants to pick her up. Wait, he's Oliver, he obviously does.

"If you carry me like I'm some damsel in distress, I will break both your legs. I am not helpless."

"No, you're sick," he says, but follows her wishes and walks with her slowly up the stairs. "We could have been up there an hour ago," he can't help saying when they hit the landing. She goes back and forth on whether it's worth it to push him back down the stairs.

By the time they make it to one of the endless hallways that comprises his second floor, she's on the verge of actually passing out. Luckily, he opens a door that's blessedly nearby and then gently pushes her onto what is probably the most comfortable surface she has ever come into contact with in her entire life.

"Why Oliver, if you wanted to get me into bed, there were any number of ways you could have done it since you met me. All of them less questionable than waiting until I had what is probably a 103 degree fever."

"Felicity."

"Not that I mind!" she adds cheerfully, stretching her arms above her head. "Come on over here."

He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, and it's comforting to know she can try his patience no matter what state she's in.

She glances over to where he's standing near the doorway, a perplexed look on his face, as if he genuinely has no idea what to do with her now. "I'm waiting," she says, trying her best for come-hither, but probably sounding like she's on death's door.

"I'm going to get you some aspirin and some water."

"If that's your thing." She snuggles further into the bed. "I don't judge. Okay, I do, but I'll still be here." She's well aware she's not making much sense, and is saved from that line of thought when she remembers a question she meant to ask before. "Hey, why are we here, anyways? I thought you were bringing me home."

"No, I have everything I need here." He holds up a glass of water and a bottle of pills as he emerges from the connecting bathroom.

"Right. Because I don't have water at my place. Or medicine. Or a freaking triage center for when you show up injured on a regular basis."

He ignores that. "You know how I feel about the security at your place." He shakes out two pills. "You've failed my security inspections 26 times in a row. This month alone."

"It's the 27th."

"Right, and I'd be showing you how they failed a 27th time if we'd gone back there."

She manages to sit up a bit and lean against the headboard so that she can take the pills he's found. She trusts they'll help her in some way. She doesn't know if it's the medicine, the bed, or the company, but she actually feels marginally better.

"Breaking into my apartment every night is not a 'security inspection' no matter how much you try to claim it is."

"Not every night," he protests. "Sometimes it's during the day."

"And how many upgrades have you and Dig put in since I've lived there?"

He frowns. "I can still get around them. If I can do it, so can someone else. You need to find a better place to live. Maybe a building owned by Queen Consolidated."

"Ah, yes, then your ownership of my entire life would be complete."

He shrugs, as if that's something about which he is  _entirely unconcerned_. "I've told you before, if you ever need a place to stay…" he trails off and waves an arm around to refer to his own house.

"No, Oliver, know what I need? I need to find a place to live where my  _stalker_  won't find me, then I won't have any problems."

He's alarmed now. "What stalker? You didn't tell me about any stalker."

"Because I didn't need to." She looks at him until he gets it.

He groans. "I am not a stalker, Felicity."

"Could have fooled me. And the police. And the definition of a 'stalker'."

"Felicity," he regards her carefully, "everything I do is for your own good."

She has to laugh, and it's really hard to stop. "Spoken like a true stalker! But don't get me wrong, you can stalk me any time, I certainly don't mind."

He shakes his head as she tries to control herself. "Is there anything you  _do_ mind?"

"Wait, is that a serious question?"

"How could it be anything but? I'm too serious, remember?"

"In that case I'm going to give you a really long list. Get me some paper. Fair warning, most of the items involve you. Item number 1," she pretends to write on an imaginary notepad, "interrupts my  _Vampire Diaries_  marathons by bleeding all over my carpet."

"Like you're missing that much – they bite people, the end."

She takes offense. "That show is great and you know it, I've seen you watching it over my shoulder while I try to stitch you up with my limited medical training."

"You can't prove that." He tries to remember his main argument. "Look, the point here is that you're trying to denigrate my character."

She crosses her arms. "Am I?"

"Do I look like I want to, I don't know, cut you into a thousand pieces and feed you to my dogs?"

"I think you're confusing stalkers and serial killers."

"You can be both."

"Can you?" She eyes him suspiciously.

"Yes, Felicity," he says, and his face is completely blank. "After all this time, you've uncovered my secret. I thought it would end differently than this, but alas, you've figured me out."

She knows he's joking, but it's eerie the way he can erase all emotion from his face like that. "What?"

She's completely unprepared for when he lunges, jumping onto the bed next to her, and it startles her so badly that she screams. He hugs her briefly as a sort of apology, but she feels like an idiot and shoves him off the bed in embarrassment at her reaction.

He wisely takes two steps back. "Sorry," he says, but he doesn't sound that sorry. "What did you think I was going to do?"

"I don't know." She waves her arms around. " _Get me_!"

"Sounds terrifying."

"It is," she snaps. "You are a horrible, horrible person to do that to a poor, innocent, sickly woman –"

"Innocent? I don't see any innocent women around here." He makes a show of looking around the room. "Weren't you just saying I need to lighten up? Have fun? There you go."

" _That's_ how you have fun? By trying to induce a heart attack?"

"Sorry, I didn't think you'd scare that easily." He looks chagrined, but she bristles at how his apology somehow places the blame on her.

She turns away from him so he can't see her face and inflects as much teariness into her voice as she can. "Well, you did, thanks a lot."

"Are you crying?" He sounds panicked. "Felicity, I'm really sorry –"

She can't hold it and starts laughing. "I scare easily? Well, so do you."

He scowls. "I'm kicking you out."

"Ha! Good luck getting me to ever leave this bed." She pulls the blankets up and shuts her eyes again.

She hears him rummaging around in some drawers and is about to ask what he's doing when she gets hit in the face with some kind of fabric. She opens her eyes to identify the items as pants and a shirt.

"What the – did you just throw these at me? I'm  _sick_ , that's practically abuse." She retaliates by throwing the shirt back at him, and they both watch it fall a good 15 feet short of hitting him.

"Thank God for my reflexes," he remarks.

"You're not funny," she tells him, which would have more impact if she weren't smiling when she said it. "I missed because I'm sick."

"Yeah, pretty sure you can't throw when you're well, either. We'll work on that."

He picks up the shirt and brings it over, holding it out. She chooses that moment to throw a pillow at him. His only reaction is to blink in surprise. "Eat your words, Oliver! Who can't throw now?"

"I'm standing right next to you."

"That's all skill," she crows and picks up another pillow.

He grabs it before she can do any more non-damage. "Is this really a good idea when you don't feel well?"

"I don't know, is it any more of a good idea than scaring me half to death?"

He looks somewhat sheepish. "You were asking for that."

"No, I'm pretty sure I wasn't."

"By insinuating that my intentions were anything other than to protect you, ever," Oliver says, and Felicity recognizes his words have taken a turn toward the serious.

She doesn't know how to apologize to him for something she'd only meant as a joke, and a harmless one at that. She settles for throwing another pillow at him.

"Stop it," he scolds, even as he catches it and throws it back at her in retaliation.

"It's actually making me feel better," she informs him. "Besides, you're a guy, you should be a fan of pillow fights. Never know where they might lead…" She tries to sound suggestive, but from the confusion on his face, she's failing terribly.

"Who  _are_ you?" he asks. She opens her mouth to reply, but he holds up a hand to stop her. "No, never mind. Just get dressed in those." He gestures at the forgotten clothes. "I think they'll be more comfortable than…whatever it is you're wearing."

"These are my work-out clothes," she says, looking down at her pink and green shirt and pants. They actually aren't that uncomfortable, but if Oliver is freely offering up clothes for her to wear, who is she to deny him?

"They're certainly…bright." Strangely, now he's the one who sounds uncomfortable. "I'll wait outside while you get dressed."

Wait a minute. "I don't mind if –" he slams the door behind him, "– you help me."

She actually could use the help this time, as the process of changing clothes seems like a monumental task. It's not getting dressed that's hard; it's getting undressed. She had gone with some kind of spandex/polyester blend for her work-out clothes, which means they are unnaturally tight. The pants are easy, but she really has to pull to get the shirt over her head. It's a lot of work, made more so by her lack of energy. She gets frustrated and yanks as hard as she can, causing her arm to hit the lamp on the bedside table, and it crashes to the floor. It was some kind of fancy stained glass, which of course had to shatter and go scattering  _everywhere_  across the hardwood floor.

"Felicity?" he calls through the door.

"Nothing, it's nothing." She hurriedly throws his shirt on and then collapses back onto the bed, gasping for air as if she just ran a marathon. "You can come in. Your lamp fell, that's all."

He opens the door and looks at the wreckage she's caused. "You were alone for five minutes. Is that the Tiffany lamp that was on the table?"

She looks at what's left of it. Did he say Tiffany?

He's already waving her off. "No, don't worry, it was only a reproduction."

She sighs with relief. "Oh good, it looked valuable."

"Nah, not expensive."

She's immediately suspicious. "'Not expensive' to me is like five dollars. What's 'not expensive' to you, Oliver?"

He shrugs. "Fifteen hundred?" He disappears into the bathroom and comes back with a dustpan. His eyes widen when he looks over at her. "You were pretty pale before, but your face just got much whiter."

"A  _reproduction_ cost fifteen hundred dollars?"

"I know, right? It was really cheap."

She thinks she gets even paler. "I'll pay you back," she says weakly, as he sweeps up the glass. "Maybe an installment plan. Ten dollars a week over, uh, 150 weeks?" She's on a budget, something she's sure he wouldn't understand.

"Sounds good," he says. "Hey, do you have the first ten on you? I was thinking of ordering pizza and I need money for the tip."

He's such a jerk. "I'll write you a check."

"You still use checks? That's cute." He picks up the base of the lamp, looks at it in dismay, then tosses it in the small trash can near the door, along with the glass.

"Tell me how cute it is when you're still cashing them three  _years_  from now," she grumbles, covering her face with her hands.

"Don't worry about it, Felicity." He sits next to her on the bed. She's about to smile, until he adds, "If you can't swing ten, you can do five a week for…six years?"

"I hate you."

"I somehow doubt that." His voice is really quiet and really close.

She looks up at him from between her fingers. "As you should."

"I don't want any money from you. But you already know that."

"I was hoping," she admits. "Though I'm open to some kind of bartering system instead. I can trade you something of equal value. Like…" She thinks furiously, but nothing she owns even comes close. "How about everything in my apartment?"

He's skeptical. "Are you sure everything would add up to fifteen hundred dollars?"

Actually, no, she's not. He'd come along with her when she'd gone shopping for furniture before. (Though he insisted the word 'shopping' didn't apply when you paid $7 for a dining room table at a yard sale, and $4 at a flea market for a decorative bird cage.)

Another idea hits her. "How about an exchange of services? I can think of many things I could do for you."

"More than you already do?"

"Much more," she smiles, then feigns surprise. "Hey, are we in a bed?"

He ignores her suggestive tone, touching his hand to her forehead. "You're still very warm."

"Indeed, I am."

"Stop hitting on me, Felicity."

"Is that what I'm doing?" she asks innocently.

"Yes, repeatedly!"

"Well, that's your own fault! If you don't respond, I have to keep doing it, don't I?" He doesn't answer. "I'm going to remember this."

"Yes, you are. And I'm wondering what you're going to think when you feel better."

She fists her hands in the blanket and sighs, feeling inexplicably brave, as if anything she says here can't affect her. "I'm going to think exactly the same things and be horrified at myself for everything I said to you tonight, but I'll never have the courage to say anything again."

He stands up and takes a few steps back. "What?"

She doesn't pay attention to him. "Unless you get me drunk. Yes, getting drunk could work…" Actually, based on the way he's putting distance between them, she could use a drink right now. "Don't you have a bar downstairs? What am I thinking, you probably have one in every bedroom, this house is practically a hotel."

"Felicity. Rewind."

"Actually, I think I'm going to get some sleep. If you don't mind?" She turns over, wondering what the odds are that he'll leave her alone.

He walks around to the other side of the bed so he's in her eyeline again. Guess the odds weren't that good. "What did you mean, that you're going to think the exact same things tomorrow?"

"That's kind of self-explanatory," she mumbles, shutting her eyes and pulling the blankets up to hug them. This bed really is amazing.

She groans when someone gets into bed next to her – well, not someone, it has to be Oliver. There wasn't anyone else around when they got here, and if there was…she starts imagining amusing scenarios where Thea or Diggle would jump into bed with her.

"Felicity!"

She looks over at him. "Yes, Oliver."

"Try to stay with me here."

"I'm with you." If only he knew. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to get your attention."

"By getting into bed with me."

"It worked didn't it?"

She huffs and sits up, sure she's not getting any sleep now. "Yes, what?"

"I don't know, help me out here!" he exclaims, surprising her, because he's almost never not calm. At the most he might get agitated. "Why are things so difficult for us?"

"They're not difficult, they're just…already defined."

"Why?"

She doesn't know what he's referring to, but she tries to answer anyway. "Because that's what you want."

"What  _I_ want? What about what you want?"

"How do you not get it by now, Oliver?" She suddenly feels like she wants to cry. "After all this time? You made it perfectly clear."

"Made  _what_ perfectly clear?" He sounds genuinely confused. She almost feels bad for him.

"That it doesn't matter what I want because you, for your own convoluted reasons, will never want the same thing in return."

"I said never?"

"We're stuck on the timetable now? I don't remember your exact words, Oliver, but I got the point. We're friends, okay? I'm fine with that."

"Yeah, you sound fine." It seems like he's debating whether or not to say his next words, then decides to go for it. "That's good, we both moved on from wondering…if there could be more."

 _That_ pisses her off. " _You_  moved on Oliver.  _You_  did!"

He jumps onto her words. "You're saying you didn't?"

She's beginning to realize that he's deliberately provoking her, but she can't help her anger. "Where am I right now? You tell me if I've moved on, because it sure doesn't look like it. Why am I even here? We both know I shouldn't be." She throws the covers off. "I should leave right –"

He stops any further argument by pulling her back across the bed and pressing his lips to hers. She gasps slightly, because she really doesn't know what this is, or why. But she doesn't mind, and it takes her somewhere around 2.7 seconds to respond and start kissing him back. It's soft and warm and sweet, and given a little more time, and more of her wits about her, she'd eagerly throw some real passion into it and escalate things a notch or ten, but Oliver pulls back, keeping the experience a teasing promise.

"What was that for?" she asks, a little breathless, but she thinks that might be more from her deteriorating physical state than from their kiss.

"What do you think it was for?" he counters.

She still wants to hear him say it, wants to  _know_  they are on the same page and not just guess. "Do you want to be…together?" She pauses. "I mean, with me?"

"Thanks for that clarification," he teases, and she wants to slap him because she's not in the mood for his insufferableness. Okay, she kind of always is, but she really doesn't want to be.

She waits, her heart racing, and wonders if that's from the illness, or from fear.

"Felicity," he sort of breathes her name. "Haven't we always been together?"

She might be a bit out of it, but she knows that is definitely not true. "We have not. I think I would have known. And I sure as hell would have been enjoying it!"

He chuckles slightly. "Okay, not in the way you're thinking. But in every way that counted, for me…"

"That's not fair. You can't tell me that and expect me to –"

"I don't expect anything," he says, turning toward her again. "I can hope, though, right?"

"Hope for what you've known to be true for as long as you've known me?" she demands, unable to grasp what he's saying.

"I can't make a mistake with you, Felicity. You're too important." She doesn't know if she's ever seen him more uncomfortable than he is in this moment. "And there's a difference between liking someone and…"

She thinks she gets it, then, what he's finding so hard to say. "Loving them," she finishes his sentence, and he doesn't correct her. "You love me?" She wants to scream at him. "Since  _when_? I've been here. I've  _been_ here! Where  _were_ you?"

He shakes his head. "I've been here, too! I just thought…I was afraid if –"

"That is not an acceptable answer, you're going to have to do better than that." She leans closer to him, anger flooding her. "Tell me when, I want a day, a time, a moment. Tell me when you fell in love with me."

He shrugs helplessly. "I can't."

"Then how do you really know?" She swallows, anger evaporating into inexplicable sadness. "Oliver, I think most people remember falling in love, and if you can't even differentiate between then, and now…"

"There. Is. No. Difference."

"So you don't love me."

"Felicity, there  _is_ no moment I realized I was in love with you. It's more like…I can't remember a time when I wasn't."

That stops her – that stops everything. It'd be hard to process that kind of declaration if she were feeling well, never mind with the world still hazy and blurred.

She really has to do something, because he hasn't moved.

"Oliver –" That gets a reaction, causing him to surge toward her again, and he kisses her much more urgently than before.

"Don't talk your way out of this," he implores, but his mouth twitches from the smile he's trying to hide.

She feigns outrage. "Fine, if you think I talk too much then I guess I'll never tell you –"

This time his kiss is deeper, and she thinks this is probably it for her. Even imagining a distant future, she can't picture anyone else. Or maybe she doesn't want to, and it amounts to the same thing.

He lets go of her. "I love you," she finishes what he had interrupted her from saying. She can't  _not_ say it, not anymore.

She knows they have a lot to talk about, but they can work out the rest later. Preferably when she doesn't feel like she's been hit by a bus; her illness is probably going to get worse before it gets better. She touches her hand to her mouth, to somehow shield him from her germs. After he's kissed her. Yeah, that's not the right order of things.

"You shouldn't be kissing me, Oliver."

"Why not?" He pulls on her arm so that she's lying against him. She tucks her head under his chin and a chill runs through her that's definitely from the fever. She doesn't know how it's possible to feel completely miserable and entirely happy at the same time.

"Because you'll catch whatever I have." She absently taps her fingers on his chest until he takes hold of her hand and stills it. For some reason, that stillness spreads through her until the only thing she feels is an overwhelming sense of calm.

"And?" he asks, kissing the top of her head.

"You want to get sick?"

He shrugs, and she can hear the smile in his voice. "I wouldn't mind."


End file.
